959-P: Hands-On Continuous Glucose Monitor Training for Primary Care Providers in a Rural Family Medicine Residency Clinic

Continuous glucose monitors (CGMs) are helpful tools in managing diabetes, and it is important that primary care providers (PCPs) receive adequate training on how to use them. There are various on-demand lectures about CGMs that are available for clinicians, but these programs lack a hands-on component. In a rural Family Medicine residency clinic, two clinical pharmacists created a training program for PCPs which included an educational module, a hands-on experience wearing an intermittently-scanned CGM for 2 weeks, and a debriefing module. This study describes and evaluates this training program. The investigators created a questionnaire aimed to measure PCPs confidence and knowledge of CGMs. PCPs were given the identical questionnaire at baseline, after the educational module (midpoint), and after the debriefing module (final). Descriptive statistical analysis was performed to assess differences in confidence and knowledge levels throughout the program. A total of 21 PCPs completed the program, including 13 medical residents, six physician faculty, and two nurse practitioners. On a scale from 1 to 10, PCP’s rated their average baseline knowledge of CGMs at 3.8. This increased to 5.3 at midpoint, and 7.9 at final. For the knowledge-based portion of the questionnaire, PCPs scored an average of 20.35% at baseline, and this increased to 75.32% at midpoint, and 90.48% at final. After completion of the training program, all 21 participants either agreed or strongly agreed that having the opportunity to wear a CGM provided them with more confidence in working with patients with CGMs, compared to a lecture-based training program alone. This study demonstrates that a training program including a hands-on experiential component can improve PCPs confidence and knowledge levels regarding CGMs.